Chapter Two

“Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall…”

            Zoey shook her head as she put dirty dishes in the window to the dish-room while Gabriella Lewis stood on the other side singing to her heart’s content as she rinsed them off and sent them through the dish-machine. Gabby was a riot to work with. She certainly kept things very entertaining. She was a year older than Zoey and had been working at the hospital for a couple of years longer than she had. Gabby was actually one of the few people who had trained Zoey when she started working there. She was also attending college, but it was local enough that she could commute and still keep her job on the weekends.

            Zoey was not going to have that luxury as she was planning to move to Tennessee for college. She wanted to attend Belmont University in Nashville. She really didn’t have a particular reason for choosing that college other than she had always loved the idea of living in Nashville. She loved everything about country music and to be at the hub of it all would be so much fun! Of course, music had absolutely nothing to do with her major, but that was beside the point.

            English was her thing. She loved everything about the written word. She loved to read; loved to write. She’d spent most of her free time during her high school years writing fan fiction. Actually, she was writing fan fiction before she even knew it was called fan fiction; long before she had access to a computer much less the internet. It was a strange but awesome habit�"one that she became even more passionate about when she found that others wrote it as well.

            “Oh my God!” Matt exclaimed when he entered the dish-room to get clean trays for the carts he was setting up. “Maw, they’re over here singing about drinkin’ beer! Hey!”

            Zoey laughed aloud when Gabby nonchalantly sprayed him with the water hose and then went right back to washing dishes and singing her song. “That was priceless.”

            Gabby looked over her shoulder and grinned at Zoey. “I think it shocked him a little bit.”

            The next time Matt appeared, it was on Zoey’s side of the window, he walked over to ask her if she wanted to go for a walk with him on their lunch break. She told him that she would. She usually took a small walk on her lunch break anyway. It gave her a little bit of fresh air and a couple of laps around the building got in a full mile.

 

~*~*~*~

 

            Later after they’d told the cook�"or Maw as they liked to call her�"where they were going to be, Zoey and Matt went out the back door and began their walk around the large, single level, brick building. As they walked, they talked a little bit about Zoey’s parents. Matt hadn’t had a chance to talk to her much since they’d last worked out, so he wanted to know how she was doing since the divorce was finalized. She was doing surprisingly well despite all the major changes that had just taken place in her life.

            She thanked him for being there for her in the beginning when she had no one to talk to about it. He was the only one of her friends who understood what she was going through. His parents had divorced several years before, so he had experienced first-hand what it was like. She trusted his advice and took it.

            There were days in the beginning when she didn’t want to live because she felt so hopeless. Her own issues topped with her parents’ splitting was too much for her to handle at times. It had always been Matt who she’d talked to about it. There nights when they sat on the phone until the wee hours of the morning just talking. He had been her rock more so than any of her other friends. “You know, I really appreciate how much you’ve been here for me this past year,” she told him. “I never expected it.”

            “I’m just glad I could help.”

            “I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I am.”

            He smiled and slung an arm around her. “That’s what friends are for, Zo. I’m always gonna be here for ya. All you have to do it let me be.”

            “Thanks. I’m glad we’re friends.” She leaned into him with a sigh, wondering for the millionth time how she’d managed to reign him in as a friend to begin with. “You got any plans next weekend?”

            “Not that I can think of, why?”

            “We’re having a campout at Sam’s parents’ cabin. Sort of a sendoff for me, Sam, and Amber. Would you wanna come? I’d invite Ang, but for some reason I don’t think her parents would allow it.”

            “You are right about that, but it doesn’t matter anyway. We aren’t exactly dating at the moment.” He shrugged as though it were no big deal. “I’ll have to see if it’s ok with my mom. Anything beats sitting at home all weekend.”

            “Tell her it’s Sam’s parents. That always worked with my mom. They’re the most responsible people on the planet.” Zoey hadn’t ignored what he had said about Angie, but she didn’t see the point in offering condolences either. It happened far too often to even feel sympathetic for either party anymore. She couldn’t understand why Matt kept going in circles with her anyway.

            He laughed knowing that she was probably right. His mom had worked with Samantha’s mom for years and they’d been in the PTO together as well. It wasn’t like they didn’t know one another well enough to trust. “I will make sure to tell her.”

 

~*~*~*~

           

            The following weekend, Zoey swung around to Amber’s house to pick her up after she got off work. Since the little town of Petersburg didn’t actually have a theater anymore, they were going next door to the more business-centered town of Moorefield, to see a movie and hang out for a while. They really hadn’t had time to do that since graduation. On the way to the theater, Amber filled Zoey in on her progress of getting ready for college. She was going to be lucky enough to have a private room, so she was excited about that and really couldn’t wait to be living on her own. Her family life hadn’t been the greatest. She’d grown up with a single mother and two siblings; a sister who required all of the attention and a brother who was just there like Amber. She often pretended that it never bothered her, but Zoey knew her well enough to know better.

            Amber was a pretty, petite girl with flaming red hair and green eyes that sometimes reminded Zoey of a cat. She was a free-spirit with many unusual interests. Sometimes she was hard to understand, but that was one of the things that Zoey loved most about her. She was eccentric to say the least, and she certainly never judged anyone. Therefore, she deserved the same respect.

            “You’re so lucky!” Zoey exclaimed as she drove her white Ford Explorer along route two-twenty toward Moorefield.  She knew that she wasn’t going to be fortunate enough to have a private room at college. She just hoped that whoever she got paired with was someone that she could learn to live with. “I requested a private room, but unfortunately, it’s one of those first come, first serve deals and I didn’t make the cut.”

            “Ah man, that sucks. Hopefully, she won’t be a total psycho.”

            “Gee that makes me feel so much better!”

            Amber gave her a sheepish grin and turned her attention back out the window. “So, we need to make a list of stuff we need for this camping adventure next weekend. Do you have a tent?”

            “I do. Sam’s dad also has a huge army tent that all of us can sleep in. And speaking of which, I may have invited someone you might hate.”

            Amber glared at her. “You invited Matt?”

            “Yeah,” Zoey cringed. “It kinda just happened before I even thought about it.”

            “It’s ok, but I can’t promise I won’t throw him over a cliff if he makes any comments about my boys.”

            Zoey laughed. Seriously, the only reason Amber didn’t like Matt was because in the one math class that they had together in school, he had teased her about their favorite boyband and she got really offended. Matt later told Zoey all about it. He found it quite cute and rather hilarious at the same time. “I doubt he wants to risk being pummeled by a�"was it a baseball bat that you threatened to use on his head?”

            Amber laughed heartily. “I see he told you about that little incident.”

            “He sure did. I warned him that it was a wise idea never to speak ill of them in front of me either.”

            “So, did you invite anyone else?”

            “Just Gabby from work. She and Sam get along pretty well I think. They know each other from Church so I thought it would be ok. She’s pretty cool. What about you?”

            “Just Harley. I didn’t want to leave him at home with my sister all weekend.”

            Later that night after the movie, the two girls sat at Amber’s kitchen table working on a list of supplies and snacks that they would need for camping. It had been a long time since either of them had been camping they weren’t sure what they each had at home and what they would end up buying or borrowing.

            “Whose idea was camping anyway?” Amber asked when they’d finished their lists.

            “Probably Ron’s. He loves it up on the mountain. Everyone knows that he’d live up there if he could.”

            “Sam probably would too,” Amber pointed out.

            “Yeah, you’re probably right on that, the girl does like to be outdoors and away from people. But anyway, this gets me away from home and work for three days, so I’m game.”

            “Me too. I’m about to kill Cheyenne.”

            Cheyenne was Amber’s sister. Quite the drama queen. She lived in a fantasy world where everything revolved around her and no one else had needs or even mattered. Zoey had little tolerance for the younger girl and what little she did manage was simply for Lena and Amber’s sake. “What did she do this time?”

            “It’s not so much what she did. It’s what she says. Like she was ranting to Mom about how I’m lazy and never do s**t around here. It’s annoying as hell. I literally cannot spend another day here.”

            “Lucky for us, we don’t have much longer.”

 

~*~*~*~

            Later in the week, Zoey got together with Samantha and Amber so they could go to the local Wal-Mart to get supplies for their camping trip. Between Zoey, Amber and Samantha’s family, they had enough gear. It was just the little things like extra lanterns, flashlights, and more marshmallow skewers that they needed.

            Of course, each of them had their own ideas for food and snacks too. That was a large part of their supply run. They even got stuff to make homemade ice cream. Granted, none of them had ever made homemade ice cream before. Zoey mentioned that her grandparents had an ice cream maker that she could bring along. It would be delicious, and really, how hard could it be?          

            By the time they left the store, they had three whole carts of things including coolers and tarps. The entire back of Zoey’s vehicle ended up being jam-packed. She could barely see out the back window as she drove up the road. She smiled looking into her rearview mirror. They’d probably gone overboard a little bit, but there was no way they were going to starve or be bored.

            When they arrived back at Zoey’s house, they separated everything out and began to pack up what they could. They weren’t leaving until the next morning, so they could only pack up the gear and food that didn’t need to be in coolers. Amber stowed her stuff in with Zoey’s since she was picking her and Harley up the next day. It just made more sense to have it already packed and ready to go than to waste time the next day.

            “So, is Matt getting Gabby?” Amber asked, wondering how they were going to have room for everything.

            “Yeah. He’s going to pick her up early Friday morning and meet me here. I told him I might need to throw some coolers and stuff on his truck. He can follow me into town to your house and we’ll get the rest of yours and Harley’s stuff then. That cool?”

            “Sounds like a plan to me.”

            “You guys!” Samantha exclaimed. “I’m so freakin’ excited!”

            Both Zoey and Amber laughed at their friend as she leaned up against her car. It was going to be the best weekend ever.